ben.parmeter

A short post today as I return from a week long vacation with the parents from up north. While it was great to see the family and friends, a week away from our bed and comforts of home have made us travel weary and happy to be back.

I didn’t want the holidays to pass without wishing the internet well and ushering in the new year. It’s likely I’ll be quite busy in the next year and won’t have as much time to put together any lengthy posts. However, I’m excited about what this year will have to offer for me, my family, and my friends. (and of course my internet friends)

Happy Holidays Internet! And Happy New Year!

The day is finally here! Suzy and I are not-so-frantically cooking and cleaning. We’re getting the place ready for family to arrive. The house already smells of baked thanksgiving goodness. It’s going to be a good day. I hope all you internet peoples are having a great Thanksgiving too. Even those that are in different countries… yup, everyone. Here’s to a full belly and a warm house. Love ya’ll – Happy Thanksgiving!

This time between Halloween and Thanksgiving is one of my favorite times of the year. I’ll explain why in just a moment. But to preface all of this, Suzy and I are having Thanksgiving at home this year. We’ve traveled some distance almost every single year to spend Thanksgiving with family, but not this year. This year, we’re going to cozy-up, get a fire going in the fireplace and host a real Thanksgiving dinner in our own house. It couldn’t make me happier to finally be able to host this event in our own place. Family, friends, you’re all invited (within reason, of course – we only have so much space). We’ll finally have a chance to use our fancy china from our wedding and fancy cookware.

This is the time of year where work starts to slow down and people start to go on vacation. The leaves start falling from the trees, the clouds roll in and dump rain on us. All things that sound sublime to me. It gives me time to curl up on the couch, wrapped in a warm blanket, to sip some egg-nog and read a book. And indeed I would be amiss if I didn’t mention Winter Beer season. I’m talking about the flood of seasonal brews from almost every brewery. This is the time for rich, thick, dark beer drinkers. It’s a veritable cornucopia of double bocks, Jubilales, stouts, porters and dunkels. I’m getting thirsty just thinking about it.

Anyone know how to cook a turkey?

It’s official – I’m going to be climbing Mt. Whitney again. And to make things even more awesome, my brother Dave is flying out from Brooklyn, New York to conquer the summit with me. It’s over a month away, but I’m still getting really excited about it. Last night we went to a seminar hosted at our local REI, given by Paul Richins Jr. He’s they guy who wrote arguably the most complete hiker/climber guide to climbing Mt. Whitney. (Mount Whitney: The Complete Trailhead-to-Summit Hiking Guide, 2001, by Paul Richins, Jr., Mountaineers Books, April 2001) I calculated that he’s probably late 50′s or early 60′s but he appears to be very fit and is still very active (he climbed Mount Whitney less than a month ago). During the seminar he answered alot of questions from people about permits, packing for overnight trips, bears, etc. At the end of it all he went through a slide show of the different hikes in the area. Just looking at the pictures made me nostalgic for the previous two times I’d climbed the mountain. I remembered having almost identical snapshots from my little digital camera. I’ve been inspired and I think I’m going to pack in my mini-tripod for this next trip. I’d like to get more of the sunrise shots that aren’t blurry (my current shots are all very blurry, except for a couple lucky shots).

And I couldn’t remember, if on the last overnight hike we had any bear canisters. So I specifically asked Paul if we had to bring bear canisters in. And he confirmed my fear. We do. I’m not sure why I blocked this particular thing out of my memory, but after reviewing my photos we absolutely did have bear canisters. How could I forget hauling those unwieldy, heavy hunks of plastic and metal up the mountain. Who invented these things? They are most certainly not designed for backpacking. Pat and Cynthia piped up at this point and told everyone about the UrSack (you know Ursa = Bear) which is a lightweight bear proof container. I’m not so sure I’m ready to crank out fifty bills for a bear proof container. I guess I’ll be lugging that dumb plastic/metal torture device up and down the mountain.

Also a bit disappointing is the fact that this year, Inyo National Forest Service(hehe… Inyo), has removed the solar toilets from both camps on the way to the summit. Which means we’re going to have to poop in a bag, and pack our waste out. Gross. Last time we attempted this hike, I convinced the fellas to take some Kaopectate (ismuth subsalicylate) normally used to treat diarrhea. My brilliant idea was that it was going to effectively slow my digestion process and perhaps I wouldn’t have to make any twosies on the mountain. Well, for Anthony and Dave, it just didn’t work. For me, however, I have an innate ability to hold off the urges and for approximately three days, I stayed strong. There’s probably more to that story, but who really wants to hear about that?

I finally posted the pictures from our rafting trip to the lower Deschutes river. The first half of the gallery are my pictures, and the second half are Dave’s pictures. So if you’re confused by the order of things, that should help explain it. Anyway, it was amazing. It was a great male bonding experience, complete with camping, beer-drinking, steak grilling, hammocking, hiking, snakes, and pure white knuckle fear. This trip was particularly great, because I got to spend some guy-time with my dad and my brother. It was a rare opportunity, because we all live so far apart. It was good for the soul. A huge thanks must go out to my Uncle Jim for organizing the whole thing.

I was a bit late in posting this set of photos, and actually got the Cathedral hiking pix up first. I guess I was just swamped with life for a while. At least I beat Dave, who promised to produce a video of this trip. I can’t wait to see what he does with that. He risked his camera getting doused and got some good footage of the rapids we went through.

Enjoy the photos. Until next time.

Many updates to the gallery this week! Yup – quite a backlog of updates.

I’ve got pictures from our trip to Oregon for my grandmother’s funeral where we got a chance to play in the snow. We visited Silver Falls State Park, had some tall mugs of hot chocolate and skated around on the slick walking paths.

I also added pictures from both my trip to Taipei, Taiwan and Beijing, China. There’s lots of stories to go along with those photos. Perhaps for another time though.

Lastly, I’ve added some pictures of the USA vs. Mexico friendly (USA wins 2:0) that I had the privilege of attending recently. Many thanks to the Mooney’s for hooking me up with tickets for this one. Steve and Ragan – you rule. Good to see the whole AZ crew from time to time.

So stop wasting time and clickety-click-click on to the gallery.

Two weeks ago my mother’s mother passed away. She suffered a severe stroke several weeks ago and just could not recover. However, from what we know, her passing was a peaceful and relatively pain free way to go. We all take comfort that she didn’t suffer excessively in her last days. She was an incredible person and will be greatly missed by all of us.

She left us with a most incredible gift, a book. It contains a family history and memoirs of her own life. She wrote her memoirs over many years of participating in a writing club, which I always admired. I have started to read the book, and now feel guilty for not having read it before. I had always had good intentions to read it… but never got around to it.

It was amazing to see the emotions come out at the memorial service. Funeral’s are an interesting dichotomy. It’s a somber event full of loss and sadness. But at the same time, it really brings family and friends together. I met cousins and distant relatives that I either hadn’t seen since I was too young to remember, or had never met before. I learned some amazing stuff about the Hopkins family and even learned of some family legacy that is present right here in my adopted home. Apparently, Mark Hopkins, capitalized on providing hardware to early miners in the late 1800′s and had a stake in the Central Pacific Railroad. I have actually walked through this hardware store, and wondered if Hopkins was at all related – turns out there is direct relation. Fascinating stuff to me.

Grandma – you will be missed.

UPDATE(1-24-2007): I’ve finished reading her book! I found it to be very interesting, but I’m biased – since it had to do with my family. The first half of the book I found fascinating because it described life in a different time, unfamiliar to me. Stories and letters from the second world war, the railroad, and even mundane things like how laundry was done 60-70 years ago. Great stuff. And it inspires me to keep a journal of my life even more.